March 1st, the first day of the spring, is the day of the old Dochia.

In Romanian mythology, Baba Dochia, or The Old Dokia, is a name originating from the Byzantine calendar which celebrates the Martyr Evdokia on 1 March. The Romanian Dokia personifies mankind's impatience in waiting for the return of spring.

Baba Dochia has a son, called Dragomir or Dragobete, who is married. Dochia ill-treats her daughter-in-law by sending her to pick up berries in the forest at the end of February. God appears to the girl as an old man and helps her in her task.

When Dochia sees the berries, she thinks that spring has come back and leaves for the mountains with her son and her goats. She is dressed with twelve lambskins, but it rains on the mountain and the skins get soaked and heavy. Dochia has to get rid of the skins and when frost comes she perishes from the cold with her goats. Her son freezes to death with a piece of ice in his mouth as he was playing the flute.

Dochia is sometimes depicted as a proud woman who teases the month of March, who in return gets its revenge by taking some days from February.

In other sources, Dochia was the daughter (or sister) of Decebalus, King of the Dacians. When the Roman Emperor Trajan was conquering part of the Dacian territory, Dochia seeks refuge in the Carpathian Mountains in order to avoid marrying him. She disguises herself as a shepherd but she takes off her lambskin garments and freezes to death with her herd. She is transformed into a stream and her animals into flowers.

In the calendar, there are 9 days associated with the 9 coats she's shedding, from March 1 to March 9. Her spirit is haunting every year around that time, bringing snowstorms and cold weather before the spring sets in. Popular tradition: everyone choose one of these days; the weather in that day shows how the year is going to be for the person who chose that day. Source legend: as she was climbing a mountain, old lady Dochia threw one by one, day by day all 9 sheepskin coats she was wearing. In the last day, the 9th, she died and turned into a rock

Thanks Adelina G

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